Next to the "sonic
instrument" I most dislike (speakers) I have considerable doubts,
merging with not wholly muffled disdain, regarding speaker cables. Over
twenty five years, at a pace that grows more rapid, I've slogged through
the in-and-out rigors of this season's Most Lauded Speaker Cables Ever
and the next season's Blow Your Mind Speaker Hi-End Glory Wire. Much fun
(not). Much more educational (forget it). Much to be suspicious about
(yup). Much stupidity (absolutely affirmative).

The unabashed low point
of a quarter century of my idiotic hope arrived a dozen years ago when a
very expensive cable company (let's call it BBB, "better ball
busters") dropped off a hundred pounds of lamp cord in varying lengths
wrapped in delightful jacket disguises. These cables were supposed to be
the end of the sonic voyage, you dig? They had to be since they were
very, very pricey. And we all know that spending more money on an audio
product translates directly into better sonic quality. Direct
correlation. A can't miss equation. Open your wallet wide and take home
a wide open invitation to an audio grand canyon. Shell out your bucks.
Step off the canyon rim.

Sayonara, chump!

Why Not?

My geezer pal, Mularkey,
always asks me that question: "why not, huh?" Doesn't make any
difference what the issue is (especially with new gear). Why not? Huh?
As, for example, Mularkey snags a "slightly used" multi-thousands of
dollar tube preamp on the internet from some dolt who, he's sure, didn't
know what a fantastic bargain he just handed ol' Mularkey. Five grand
for a chrome-finished box with nice glowing lights inside. My pal hooks
it up and invites me over. We listen and, after fifteen minutes, I
mention that the "nicely broken in" preamp is somewhat short of bottom
octaves compared with the cheaper pre he just un-loaded in his garage
sale.

Thankfully, this story
has a (momentarily) decent conclusion, because Mularkey recently found
audiophile religion by listening closely before plunking out his cash.
Better yet, he started out in search of ways to build a genuinely
engaging sound system with "el cheapo" gear. Mularkey made out like a
stealthy bandito and, for less than $1500, now has a CD-based
audio system that sounds very much like music. I'll laugh or choke
myself silly when (if) he remembers to thank me for assistance... ah,
but that's my point, you see: this sport of high end (rear-end) audio is
not about glory or money or any human proclivity so much as generous
enjoyment of life's second best past time: digging great music.

Genuine "No B. S." (Take
No Prisoners) Speaker Cables

I can name a handful of
"very good" speaker cables, but—when the issue is truly world class
speaker wire—perhaps two are possible to rank, in my (somewhat
exhausted) experience, as "truly world class." I'll forego discussion
of a relative newcomer to the (potentially de facto) state of the
art in order to look closely at the Reigning Leader of the speaker cable
universe as I hear it: Kubala-Sosna Elation speaker cables.

For quite awhile I've
enjoyed the warm transparency and highly detailed musical reality of K-S
Emotion speaker cables. Those blue cloth-enclosed fat guys are a
wonderfully hilarious partner for great speakers and superior sound
systems. In one word, I'd characterize their audio landscape as joyful.
I've found that it's almost impossible to find anything not to like (not
to thoroughly enjoy with maximum respect) when those sound- and
music-friendly behemoths go into the rig.

Frankly, I'm certain I could live with those
wires without any real sense of sonic deprivation or musical
diminishment... until, that is, I plopped the new Elation speaker cables
into their essentially permanent place in my main system. {Note here
that an equipment reviewer is forced (blessed) to swap out gear, wire,
and associated ancillaries as part of his or her analytic fun.} But,
wow... these even more bulky Elation cables have climbed
to the K2 pinnacle by the oldest, strategy imaginable: less is more.

To digress uno
momento: I challenge any serious audio listener to a friendly wager
(say, six four packs of Boddington's ale, coming here, against a fifth
of Johnnie black, going there) that, in a blind shoot out with speakers
that are not over-damped or underwhelming dynamically, the K-S Elation
speaker cables will best any cable at any price in sheer musical
pulchritude, musical texture, dynamic heft and complete audio vivacity.
K-S "Emotion" speaker wire is a bad ass party animal that resembles the
nearby champion race horse, Zenyatta, stabled at Del Mar after her
eighteenth straight victory. Emotion wire is athletic and indefatigable
with musical cheer. It seems to be smiling when you install it. "Emotion"
cables put a smile on your face because, somehow, they make music feel
more... well, "musical." The newer Elation, however, has
that ne plus ultra lyrical magic which is damned hard to define
precisely. Without exaggeration, "Elation" speaker cables appear to be
directly affiliated with the self-confident aesthetic cockiness that
Duke Ellington used to call a hipster's "groove" and which Count Basie
boiled down to the "pat your foot" factor. The only cable that
outperforms Emotions are the authentically expensive—as in audiophile
Rolls Royce expensive—Elations.

Less Is More ?

Kubala-Sosna's Elation
cables live up to their joyful name. Isn't elation what music
intends to create or, at least, approach? Foregoing such lofty
philosophical height, one is stranded in the dessert of inadequate
terminology to describe what these loveable, fiendish, and fantastically
respectful (of sound and music) cables are up to. Believe me, they are
up to something you may not be prepared for. The better the audio
system, the more these cables strut their innocently wicked mojo.
Remember my challenge a moment back? Bodington's ale for me when you
lose your feckless wager against these pricey priceless wonders. What
the hell did Howard Sosna and Joe Kubala put in these beautiful (if,
also, industrial-strength looking) pythons? Whatever it is, the
fundamental laws of electromagnetism have apparently been stretched to
the point of Maxwellian-Heisenbergian war page. Is it possible for
ordinary "real world" objects, such as audio cables (how mundane) to
reflect the logic of nano-subtexts at the Planck scale? Come on, guys...
that's surely not the case, right? If it is, how about the K-S guys just
coming out with it: "Secrets of Ultimate Sonic Trickery in the Age of
Stephen Hawking and Late String Theory-Quantum Loop Gravity
Misdirection."

As I ponder that weird,
wild publication possibility (a great Christmas present for all the
Geeks and Nerds in your family!), it dawns on me that there just may be
something thoroughly over the top at work in these Elations...
something on the order of a mundane, humble (mere "audio") product
achieving a breakthrough into the infinite asymptotic trajectory of
cyber hypertopia.

Shit, I'm sorry I wrote
that sentence. If it's close to the truth of the brilliant trickery and
outright damn-near-mystical sonic results of Elation speaker wire, then
I may be vulnerable to permanent razzing from the Sonic Nazis. Forget
what I just said !

Momentary Reconnoitering

Musical jubilation
should be the outcome and end of the line virtue of great audio
reproduction, an inextricable partner to all musical experience. Thus,
consider these related terms of melodic and harmonic endearment.
Euphoria. A profound gas.

Zen Focus.

You get my point. These
costly new Kubala-Sosna wires earn their way into your heart and mind
and soul. They are "on the side" of musical jubilation. If, indeed, you
have a soul, Kilroy, you may discover its elusive proximity to the rest
of your life when you set up audio shop with equipment good enough to
let these cables shine sonically by way of subtraction.

Why? you ask. Because
these bloody amazing Elation cables seem literally to disappear.
Seemingly, there is no wire driving your transducer boxes. Nothing
going in. Everything you've never heard with this degree of transparency
and immediacy coming out. I'll betcha you can't find these wires
tangled in the musical outcome.

Elations are the most
revealing speaker wires I have heard. Or never heard. Ever. They're not
"analytical," as in opposition to "musical." They are the zero degree
partner of well recorded, gloriously reproduced music. How much "less"
can you achieve than escaping into the void, evaporating (annihilating)
the cable messenger?

Let me admit that the degree of sonic
enhancement Elation wires bring into play makes your experience "seem
like" music simply "appears" at the open point of musical delivery, with
your speakers... as if (no kidding!) a sort of
impossible quantum entanglement is at work. Music starts at the moment
and place of origin; moves through vinyl or digital delivery into preamp
focus and amplifier boosting. Viola! It explodes or whispers (waltzes,
boogies, or grinds) dream-like with absolute material reality before
your startled witness. No wires. No signal-corrupting plumbing. Music at
its origin is here. Bang.

And yet there are
"wires" in the signal chain ! Pero si muove !

I'm well aware that my
amazed pleasure will inevitably be trumped down the road. Someone,
without question, will improve the "audio invisibility factor" that is
so much the alluring secret of Elation cables. Until that occurs, I am
not merely impressed by these absurdly wonderful cables. I'm now at work
defending myself from incredulity.

Less Is Absolutely
Better Than More

I can cite any master
tape, any personally recorded session that I've lived with for a month
or for twenty-plus years: delivered through Elation wire the music is
more three- and even (somehow) four-dimensional than before. No less
bracing, I now hear, with no confusion or retreat, exactly what each and
all of my audio components accomplishes. I hear the sonic truth of each
analog interconnect and digital cable in the sonic chain. With spooky
consistency, Elation speaker wire in my audio realm has been like Windex
cleaning every inch and pane of sonic glass, opening recordings with
increased information and beguiling me with more sonic and musical
accuracy: more "there-ness" in each recording I play and, most of
usefully, hear in my own recordings. I hear every mistake, glitch and
less than optimum choice I made. I also hear how surprising, brilliant
and outright fantastic the musicians are that I've recorded. They are
here with me, closer, more tangible. Buster Williams' enormous bass
authority is unrivaled. Tom Harrell's trumpet is heartbreaking with
lyrical pathos. Mike Garson's piano sings with his unique touch. With
stunning boldness, a Fazioli piano demonstrates its difference from a
Steinway. Now, here in my studio, these pianos are present. They are
HERE with their magnificent dynamic heft and pianistic decay. More than
ever before, I feel connected to music and am genuinely humbled by the
good luck of recording so many uniquely gifted musicians... the power
and elegance of Kenny Barron's piano; Duke Ellington's unrivaled
orchestra; and Sarah Vaughan's inimitable voice. The joy of such
immediacy is endless. This is now, no question, the second greatest
pleasure on earth.

Despite the "more" I've
now testified to, I subscribe to Kubala-Sosna's Zen wisdom. Alas, it
arrives with paradoxical bluntness. There is definitely "more" in these
new cables. More material (whatever the hell it is). More sound. More
"there" right here. More musical bliss. More sonic bulk (not
bloat) that somehow creates more joyful audio
vividness-with-truthfully-accurate sonic reproduction.
Counter-intuitively, perhaps, but Kubala-Sosna's "more" arrives with
(at) a zero point where less sonic distortion and blur obscure one's
awareness of the cables' innate work as music delivery vehicles. I'm
stumbling here a bit trying to say, simply, that these cables in this
system for all these many months of constant challenge, doubt, allure
and "mixing it all up" have plumbed the this wire's sonic and musical
Karma. Should I note that, in a funny sense, Elation cables are shy
because they refuse to show off or call attention to themselves? They
merely do that ultimate and perfect "audiophile" thing: let music shine,
whisper and, sometimes, majestically shout.

If a recent editorial,
in Stereophile (Sept., '10) by Stephen Mejias, is on target (and I think
it is: i.e., that our present culture erodes intelligence and
diminishes thought) then it seems pertinent to add this final kudo for
the remarkable Elation wires. Their elegant and truly "noble" audio
invisibility—enhancing musical magic, releasing the full voice and
erotic flesh of music as seldom heard in musical reproduction—provokes
both thought and feeling by the sheer haptic immediacy of their
undetectable sonic force.

It's not an
overstatement to assert, thus, that intelligent emotion and deeply felt
thinking are marks of refined consciousness. To that degree, I'm fully
able to regard Kubala-Sosna's Elation cables not only as a bulwark
against encroaching habits of eroded awareness, but as a positive
contribution to that last bastion of higher human education: Audio
Literacy. Here is the bottom line : Anyone who can afford Kubala-Sosna's
Elation speaker cables should indulge their refinement and enjoy their
enhancement of life at its most vivid. For my part, I cannot imagine
plowing ahead without these gallant, magical cables in my musical world.
Even old guys can make a wish before blowing out the last candle.
Miracles, on occasion, appear. Jim Merod